Slayers: Walking the Path
by Gabi-hime
Summary: Zelgadiss Greywords said goodbye to everyone he knew in an attempt to find his cure on his own. Alone. Without help. Some people just can\'t take hints.


Slayers: Walking the Path Print 85 

_Slayers: Walking the Path_

By: Gabi (gabi@pinkfluffy.net)

Episode 1 :: Mysterious! The Two Books of Grey Words

_Cal-Tan tested and approved ^-^_

Partings are rarely pleasant, especially if those who are parted are to be parted for some indefinite period of time. Still, a righteous heart that burns with the fire of justice has faith, and the strength to endure. She would be strong. He needed her to be strong. Her country needed her to be strong. She couldn't let them down.

Amelia Wil Tesla Sairuun stood confident, her hands ball-fisted on her hips. She was going to be strong. She was standing on the white marble steps of the west entrance to the palace, clad in a pale blue dress and bedecked in a tiara to fit her station. She would have liked to have met him wearing her simple travelling garb; she felt most comfortable in that, after all, but an affair of state demanded her attention almost immediately after this meeting, so she didn't have time to change for old times sake.

Not that it really mattered. The pale blue dress with the white trim didn't really make her look elegant, but those who had dealt with the small-statured princess of Sairuun could honestly testify that her lack of grace and elegance were totally negated by her passion and fervor. She had an unconquerable spirit that was apparent no matter what trappings of fabric she might wear, whether she was denouncing the evils of injustice or simply declaring that life was indeed wonderful. The princess's undeniable power was completely centered in her determination and absolute and total refusal to give up hope, no matter what she faced.

This is why it didn't really matter what she might wear, her good points, and bad points would always shine through because she was so intense. It was both a gift and a curse. Still, official meetings of state demanded a particular mode of dress that even princesses were required to adhere to. This was the reason she said goodbye to Zelgadiss Greywords wearing clothing that was unfamiliar to him, and he was aware of it even as she stood cheerfully on the steps, an ancient manuscript cradled protectively in her arms.

"Well, Zelgadiss-san, I guess this is it. I'm really glad we could help you find a clue to your cure, even though I have no idea what the Book of Grey Words was doing in the Great Library," she sweatdropped, "It is a book of black magic and chimera creation. I would have sworn that we didn't have any books like that in Sairuun."

"Your help was greatly appreciated, Amelia," he let the slightest hint of a smile play across his face, "Although I think it's a little presumptuous to claim that there aren't any black magic books in the city."

"Zelgadiss-san!" she cried indignantly, "You know that Sairuun is the white magic capital of the world . . . "

He raised his two half gloved hands in defense and smiled wryly, "But even you must know that it is wise to be aware of black magic, even if you don't practice it. After all, how can you be a defender of justice if you don't know what you're up against?"

She grew thoughtful, "I hadn't thought of it that way," she peered at the book she held in her arms, "Still, this is a pretty weird book to find anywhere. We would never have found it if you hadn't thought to search that dusty old room in the archives."

He quirked an eyebrow, "Or if you hadn't fallen off the top rung of that ladder into that pile of old manuscripts."

She blushed palely, somewhat embarrassed at her contribution, but she still managed her confident smile, "So I guess it was a team effort."

He nodded and noted how she sparkled under even that barest nuance of praise.

She looked thoughtful again, "I only wish that I could go with you. I'm sure I could help out . . . " she trailed off again.

He shook his head firmly and she watch the shining lavender wire of his hair perform an additional quiver as if reinforcing his gesture. 

"We've been over this before. This is something I need to do on my own. When I've found my cure, I'll come back here and meet with you and Lina and Gourry." 

She shook her head, "I just wish I could help you. I know how important this is to you," she seemed melancholy for a moment and he almost worried, but then she continued, "And with the burning righteousness of justice on our side, there's no way we could lose!"

He rolled his eyes and responded dryly, "I have no doubt," and then he paused for a moment, "You know that I may be gone a long time."

She nodded carefully, "I know, Zelgadiss-san, but I have faith in you. If you say that you'll return to Sairuun to see Lina-san, Gourry-san, and," she paused and blushed again, "and me as soon as you find your cure, then I know you will. I'll be waiting for you to come back. We'll throw a great big party and I'll invite everyone."

He sweatdropped. He didn't particularly want a great big party to celebrate his return to human form, should he ever actually succeed in returning to human form, but he didn't imagine there would be any talking her out of it so he just gave tacit approval.

She looked thoughtful again, as if trying to get something that she wanted to say into the proper words, "What I want you to know, Zelgadiss-san, is that I think a pure heart questing for what they truly desire will always be victorious," she smiled and held out the book, "Take as long as you need to find what you're looking for. I believe in you. I'll be waiting for you when you come back," she announced, her blush deepening and she quickly amended her statement, "And so will Lina-san and Gourry-san. We'll all be waiting for you."

He felt the shining sincerity of her statement as she spoke, and as he took the book he replied honestly, "Thank you Amelia. I'm glad you understand."

Amelia looked like she was about to add something else about honor, justice, and following your dreams to cover up her tell-tale blush, but a minister pointing emphatically to the clock mounted in a stone monument nearby curtailed it.

"I suppose this is goodbye, Amelia," he nodded curtly and was about to bow and quietly leave the palace grounds while she was busily hurried to a meeting of state, but she began rummaging behind her for something, so he stopped to hear what she would say. He hoped she wasn't going to make things difficult. She had thus far borne it rather well.

"Only goodbye for now," she reminded, and finally produced what she had been looking for. It was a familiar band of well-worn pink cloth with a blue ward stone on it. She offered it forward shyly, "I wanted you to have it, for good luck," she suddenly seemed to get over her shyness, "After all, even heroes of justice on noble quests need good luck sometimes!" 

_Well, _he thought, _it couldn't hurt anything._

"If that's true, then I'm probably going to need a lot of luck," he remarked dryly and tucked the proffered charm inside his tunic.

"Zelgadiss-san!" she cried reproachfully, standing a little more firmly on the steps, then she smiled as he turned to walk away, "Take care of yourself, and try to write every once in a while!"

He waved her off, but even as he did he added, "I will if I have time. Take care of yourself too."

She nodded, even though he couldn't see it and brushed the back of her hand against her eyes. She was going to be strong for everyone, "Have a good journey and good luck!" she cried after him, even as her ministers ushered her from the steps and into the palace. 

Her father, also on his way to a meeting, passed her in the hall, and wrapped her in an intense bear hug and announced that faith could move mountains. As she was hurried on to her meeting, she repeated the word over and over again to herself and she drew strength from it.

Faith. She would have faith.

*

Telerin sneezed and attempted to remind herself again why she was crawling underneath a desk in the fourth level basement of a tower inhabited by lesser mazoku. There had to be easier ways to learn the chaos words. She shifted her position slightly and her hand came in contact with some unidentifiable squishy mass. There certainly had to be cleaner ways to learn the chaos words, if nothing else. Still, this was the first substantial lead she'd had in a long time. The neglected tower she was currently under had apparently once belonged to a great hermit mage, and because of this, Telerin was sure that somewhere in the basement laboratories there would be some book or some scrap of information that might further her quest for the words of chaos that bind the spells of black magic.

She leaned over and some of her thick blonde hair fell into her face.   She attempted to brush it back, but only managed to smear some of the unidentifiable black squishy stuff in it. She cursed and did not direct her small ball of light over to the squishy mass, because she was sure that she would be happier not knowing what it was. She was going to throw herself into a hot bath after this little foray, there was no mistaking that.

"You know, Mil-chan, you would think that after eight hundred years I would have gotten over my crawling through slime stage."

The dark blue stone suspended on a chain of carved coral around her wrist didn't answer, but she was not perturbed. It never answered. It wasn't supposed to. It was merely a memory stone, a stone spelled to record her spoken thoughts and spit them back out at her at a later date. It was especially useful when she needed to remember something important, but years of spending lonely days in dusty libraries or crawling through rat infested abandoned magic labs had made her develop the singular habit of talking to the stone as if it were a real person. It broke the monotony and it helped her think. She had even named it after a person she had been close to earlier in her life, and she often gave it the attributes of this person, especially when she was angry at it or feeling particularly lonely.

"Well, at least I'm crawling through the slime for a good reason. You know as well as I do that this was a good tip, Mil-chan, and I'm almost certain that there's a hidden drawer under this desk."

She crawled forward again and felt gingerly under the bottom of the desk, hoping not to trigger some magical trap or to put her hand in a spider's nest. After a moment, she squealed triumphantly as her hand came in contact with a smooth carved button. She attempted pushing it, pulling it, and turning it to no avail. She poked at it a few minutes longer, and then deiced that it had to be spelled. Fortunately, the unlocking spell for a small thing like this was so simple it didn't even require an incantation.

"Release."

She heard a satisfying click and the button swung in easily. Even as it did, the bottom of the drawer she had her hand on fell out and she squeaked with glee as the secret contents spilled into the floor. She scooped up the better part of it and crawled out from under the desk to examine it. Mostly, it was mediocre. There were a few magic rings, baubles, and amulets, which Telerin absently packed into her pouch, but by far the most interesting thing that came from the drawer was a weather-stained manuscript. 

"Now this is what I'm talking about! You know, if we're lucky, Mil-chan, it will be filled to the brim with spells on how to call on the power of L-sama."

The stone made no sound, but after a moment, she raised her wrist to eye level and glared at it.

"Now don't you even start. This isn't the time or the place. Bother me later, after I've had a bath."

The stone was once again mute so Telerin devoted her attention to studying the text she had recovered in the dim and flickering illumination of the light spell.

"The Book of Grey Words?" she mused, out loud, "That certainly sounds promising. Books like these always contain secret spells and incantations!"

She carefully flipped the book open to the first page and scanned it.

"Aww, damn. This mainly looks like a guidebook for creating chimera. I'm going to have to take a closer look at it once we get outside," she glanced around the damp abandoned basement, "Because I really don't want a lesser mazoku to just happen upon me while I'm reading. You never know, it might contain great secrets to black magic!"

She scowled at the stone that dangled from her wrist even as she packed the manuscript carefully away in her pack.

"Shut up, Mil! No one asked you!"

*

Zelgadiss leaned back in his chair in the common room of a large inn and regarded the manuscript critically.  He had been perusing it for over two hours, and had yet to find anything that he didn't already know.  He cursed under his breath.  The book had seemed so promising the first time he had examined it.  It was not only a guide to chimera creation but also had extensive and detailed information on Rezo the Red Priest's dealings with the mazoku.  Not for the first time, Zelgadiss found himself wondering exactly who had written the book.  There were no names on the first few pages, and the narration of the book gave no clues as to who had written it, other than that they had extensive knowledge of Rezo.  He had no idea how the author had come into this knowledge, as he doubted seriously that Rezo would have answered the questions of any piquant scholars who claimed to be writing books about his work with the mazoku.

For this reason, Zelgadiss would have been inclined to believe that the majority of the information in the book was fictional, some flight of fantasy that some old mage had written off the top of his head.  Still, what was in the book corresponded quite closely with what information he had been able to gather in his travels, and by far, the most interesting tidbit he had encountered were the often mentioned string of secret magical laboratories that Rezo had left like a necklace strewn through the mountains of the north.  Of course, the mentions of these labs were unsubstantiated rumors at best, but if they existed, if Zelgadiss could find some clue as to their whereabouts, then his trek north would be entirely justified.  

Despite his pessimism, he was certain that there was something fundamentally important about this old manuscript.  Whenever he grew frustrated and put it down he felt his hands drawn back to it of their own accord.  Of course, he couldn't be too hopeful.  This might turn out to be a similarly promising but  altogether useless waste of time as had so many of his misadventures in the past.  He tried not to dwell on the number of times he'd dressed up in ridiculous costumes all for the sake of chasing down a rumor that sounded like it might somehow be related to the Claire Bible's cousin's sister's dog.

He let out a disgruntled sigh and rubbed his forehead in an attempt to quell the headache that was already starting.  For some reason the powers that be seemed to delight in sending him on wild goose chases that involved him dressing in women's clothing.  He knew.  He just _knew_ that L-sama had a elementally bizarre sense of humor.  There was no other explanation for the current state of his life.  He ordered another coffee and contemplated ordering something stronger but decided there was no use.  He'd metabolize it as quickly as he drank it anyway.  He might as well get his mind back on the manuscript.

He had to go about this in a logical fashion.  He would start over from the beginning of the book and look for any clues that might hint at the rough location of the first of the magical laboratories.

The front piece was blank except for the title and a magical seal at the bottom of the page.   Well, that wasn't particularly useful.  The second page was blank and looked faintly discolored, as if the paper hadn't been treated properly before the manuscript was bound.  The third page was the beginning of chapter one and it bore a large number one In scripted style a few lines of poetry before the manuscript began in earnest.  Such was common of most scholarly works and Zelgadiss had skipped over this page in an attempt to get to the more interesting content of the book.  Still, if he was going to be thorough then there was no skipping anything.

He studied the scripting of the number for several seconds, trying to place anything that might be the slightest bit irregular.  After a steady few minutes he decided that the ornate one was not supposed to be anything but numerical demarcation and stoically moved onto the few verses of poetry.

"_The Lord of the North sleeps in the Water Dragon's den and near the Merchant's City I mixed blood and blood.  In the cleft of a broken mountain lies my wealth, guarded by the gift of eternal death_."

Zelgadiss caught his breath audibly.  It was a songmap.  The few verses of poetry weren't merely the flight of some scholar's fancy, they were a songmap and logically they must lead to . . .

"The first of Rezo's magical laboratories," Zelgadiss exhaled finally.  

Here at least was a concrete clue, not some rumor about dolls' towers told by a smiling mazoku.  The song map wasn't too difficult to decipher either, not by someone with any sort of education about geography and history with the boundary.

The Lord of the North sleeps in the Water Dragon's den.  That line was obviously about the Kataart Mountains in the north where the Lord of the North still slept, sealed into the Holy Mountain that the Water Dragon had guarded.  The Merchant City had to be Vezendy.  He'd never head of any other city called by that name in all of the bound countries.  A cleft in a broken mountain had to designate the location of the laboratory itself, secreted away, likely built into a natural or mined recess in a mountain near Vezendy.

The first laboratory was almost due north of his present location, a small town a few days out of Sairuun City.  Vezendy was so close that he had to investigate.  It was too tempting, too promising and damnably too easy.  

He knew, he just _knew_, probably due to L-sama's unerringly bizarre sense of humor, that it was by no means going to be that easy.

***

**_ Tel's Magical Corner_**

::doofy children's music plays and Chibi-Tel dances onto the scene dragging Zelgadiss by the cape::

**Telerin:**  Hi everyone! I'm Telerin, everyone's favorite Black Sorceress this side of Lina Inverse!

**Zelgadiss:**  If you're as popular as Lina then you should probably have mobs with pitchforks and torches coming after you.

**Telerin:** o_o :peeps out the window to be sure::  Whew ^_^  Zelgadiss, you're such a prankster. 

**Zelgadis:** ¬_ ¬

**Telerin:**  Anyway, today we're here at Tel's Magical Corner to talk about the chaos words!

::applause::

**Telerin:**  For those of you who may not have had the benefit of a great education, the chaos words are the words the bind magic.  They're literally the words that make up the incantation of the spell.  If you're an average magician you can yell "Burst Rondo" all you want and no rondos are going to burst because you've neglected to chant the incantation before hand.  Only really talented magicians can cast spells with shortened or neglected incantations, but even these spells aren't quite as powerful as those cast with incantations.  They also use up more magical power per use. 

**Zelgadiss:** They are, however, the fastest way to cast spells.

**Telerin:** ::whaps him with a paper fan:: I was getting to that!  Stop stealing my show!  Anyway, the chaos words are really important as even slight changes in the syntax can have drastic effects on the power and result of the spell.  This is why finding just the right words is so important ^_^.  Anyway, that's all the time we have for this edition of Tel's Magical Corner, be sure and tune in next week when our guest star is L-sama! ^_^

**Zelgadiss:** It is not.

**Telerin:** ^^; ::to Zelgadiss:: V_V Shhhhhh!  Until then, keep on practicing ^_^

::doofy theme music plays again and a curtain comes down on the scene::


End file.
